Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

I've made this topic quite a few times too and I believe it's irreconcilable.

If God knows everything you will ever do, whatever he knows you'll do is predestined. Thus, you wouldn't have the free will to do anything other than what God foreknew and you don't have free will. On the other hand, if God doesn't know what you're going to do, and gives you true free will, then he isn't omniscient.

One explanation that I read very recently has a different answer to this. I'm still uncertain about it but it goes like this:

God is always in the present. So as far as God can foreknow something, he can only know it presently because God is always in the present. This would indicate that whatever sins are committed are known to God at the exact time they are occurring.

It's an interesting argument but I still don't know if it's coherent. If an omnipresent God was always present, wouldn't he be present in hell too?

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

I've made this topic quite a few times too and I believe it's irreconcilable.

If God knows everything you will ever do, whatever he knows you'll do is predestined. Thus, you wouldn't have the free will to do anything other than what God foreknew and you don't have free will. On the other hand, if God doesn't know what you're going to do, and gives you true free will, then he isn't omniscient.

One explanation that I read very recently has a different answer to this. I'm still uncertain about it but it goes like this:

God is always in the present. So as far as God can foreknow something, he can only know it presently because God is always in the present. This would indicate that whatever sins are committed are known to God at the exact time they are occurring.

It's an interesting argument but I still don't know if it's coherent. If an omnipresent God was always present, wouldn't he be present in hell too?

The problem with this is that if god is in every present it doesn't take away the fact that god is in a linear present of the only actualizing timeline of events, and gods knowing everything through this method would still indicate determinism.

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

I've made this topic quite a few times too and I believe it's irreconcilable.

If God knows everything you will ever do, whatever he knows you'll do is predestined. Thus, you wouldn't have the free will to do anything other than what God foreknew and you don't have free will. On the other hand, if God doesn't know what you're going to do, and gives you true free will, then he isn't omniscient.

One explanation that I read very recently has a different answer to this. I'm still uncertain about it but it goes like this:

God is always in the present. So as far as God can foreknow something, he can only know it presently because God is always in the present. This would indicate that whatever sins are committed are known to God at the exact time they are occurring.

It's an interesting argument but I still don't know if it's coherent. If an omnipresent God was always present, wouldn't he be present in hell too?

The problem with this is that if god is in every present it doesn't take away the fact that god is in a linear present of the only actualizing timeline of events, and gods knowing everything through this method would still indicate determinism.

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

I've made this topic quite a few times too and I believe it's irreconcilable.

If God knows everything you will ever do, whatever he knows you'll do is predestined. Thus, you wouldn't have the free will to do anything other than what God foreknew and you don't have free will. On the other hand, if God doesn't know what you're going to do, and gives you true free will, then he isn't omniscient.

One explanation that I read very recently has a different answer to this. I'm still uncertain about it but it goes like this:

God is always in the present. So as far as God can foreknow something, he can only know it presently because God is always in the present. This would indicate that whatever sins are committed are known to God at the exact time they are occurring.

It's an interesting argument but I still don't know if it's coherent. If an omnipresent God was always present, wouldn't he be present in hell too?

The problem with this is that if god is in every present it doesn't take away the fact that god is in a linear present of the only actualizing timeline of events, and gods knowing everything through this method would still indicate determinism.

God would exist in the linear timeline but only presently.

so maybe im not understanding the rebuttal but does god know the future presently?

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

I've made this topic quite a few times too and I believe it's irreconcilable.

If God knows everything you will ever do, whatever he knows you'll do is predestined. Thus, you wouldn't have the free will to do anything other than what God foreknew and you don't have free will. On the other hand, if God doesn't know what you're going to do, and gives you true free will, then he isn't omniscient.

One explanation that I read very recently has a different answer to this. I'm still uncertain about it but it goes like this:

God is always in the present. So as far as God can foreknow something, he can only know it presently because God is always in the present. This would indicate that whatever sins are committed are known to God at the exact time they are occurring.

It's an interesting argument but I still don't know if it's coherent. If an omnipresent God was always present, wouldn't he be present in hell too?

The problem with this is that if god is in every present it doesn't take away the fact that god is in a linear present of the only actualizing timeline of events, and gods knowing everything through this method would still indicate determinism.

God would exist in the linear timeline but only presently.

so maybe im not understanding the rebuttal but does god know the future presently?

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

I've made this topic quite a few times too and I believe it's irreconcilable.

If God knows everything you will ever do, whatever he knows you'll do is predestined. Thus, you wouldn't have the free will to do anything other than what God foreknew and you don't have free will. On the other hand, if God doesn't know what you're going to do, and gives you true free will, then he isn't omniscient.

One explanation that I read very recently has a different answer to this. I'm still uncertain about it but it goes like this:

God is always in the present. So as far as God can foreknow something, he can only know it presently because God is always in the present. This would indicate that whatever sins are committed are known to God at the exact time they are occurring.

It's an interesting argument but I still don't know if it's coherent. If an omnipresent God was always present, wouldn't he be present in hell too?

The problem with this is that if god is in every present it doesn't take away the fact that god is in a linear present of the only actualizing timeline of events, and gods knowing everything through this method would still indicate determinism.

God would exist in the linear timeline but only presently.

so maybe im not understanding the rebuttal but does god know the future presently?

When God knows the future he is in the future, but presently.

that seems contradictory, god is in the future, but in the present(which is not the future) X and ~X.

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

I've made this topic quite a few times too and I believe it's irreconcilable.

If God knows everything you will ever do, whatever he knows you'll do is predestined. Thus, you wouldn't have the free will to do anything other than what God foreknew and you don't have free will. On the other hand, if God doesn't know what you're going to do, and gives you true free will, then he isn't omniscient.

One explanation that I read very recently has a different answer to this. I'm still uncertain about it but it goes like this:

God is always in the present. So as far as God can foreknow something, he can only know it presently because God is always in the present. This would indicate that whatever sins are committed are known to God at the exact time they are occurring.

It's an interesting argument but I still don't know if it's coherent. If an omnipresent God was always present, wouldn't he be present in hell too?

The problem with this is that if god is in every present it doesn't take away the fact that god is in a linear present of the only actualizing timeline of events, and gods knowing everything through this method would still indicate determinism.

God would exist in the linear timeline but only presently.

so maybe im not understanding the rebuttal but does god know the future presently?

When God knows the future he is in the future, but presently.

that seems contradictory, god is in the future, but in the present(which is not the future) X and ~X.

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

I've made this topic quite a few times too and I believe it's irreconcilable.

If God knows everything you will ever do, whatever he knows you'll do is predestined. Thus, you wouldn't have the free will to do anything other than what God foreknew and you don't have free will. On the other hand, if God doesn't know what you're going to do, and gives you true free will, then he isn't omniscient.

One explanation that I read very recently has a different answer to this. I'm still uncertain about it but it goes like this:

God is always in the present. So as far as God can foreknow something, he can only know it presently because God is always in the present. This would indicate that whatever sins are committed are known to God at the exact time they are occurring.

It's an interesting argument but I still don't know if it's coherent. If an omnipresent God was always present, wouldn't he be present in hell too?

The problem with this is that if god is in every present it doesn't take away the fact that god is in a linear present of the only actualizing timeline of events, and gods knowing everything through this method would still indicate determinism.

God would exist in the linear timeline but only presently.

so maybe im not understanding the rebuttal but does god know the future presently?

When God knows the future he is in the future, but presently.

that seems contradictory, god is in the future, but in the present(which is not the future) X and ~X.

He would be in both because the future would be the present.

sounds like more nonsense, that no one can understand. Just my opinion.

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

I've made this topic quite a few times too and I believe it's irreconcilable.

If God knows everything you will ever do, whatever he knows you'll do is predestined. Thus, you wouldn't have the free will to do anything other than what God foreknew and you don't have free will. On the other hand, if God doesn't know what you're going to do, and gives you true free will, then he isn't omniscient.

One explanation that I read very recently has a different answer to this. I'm still uncertain about it but it goes like this:

God is always in the present. So as far as God can foreknow something, he can only know it presently because God is always in the present. This would indicate that whatever sins are committed are known to God at the exact time they are occurring.

It's an interesting argument but I still don't know if it's coherent. If an omnipresent God was always present, wouldn't he be present in hell too?

The problem with this is that if god is in every present it doesn't take away the fact that god is in a linear present of the only actualizing timeline of events, and gods knowing everything through this method would still indicate determinism.

God would exist in the linear timeline but only presently.

so maybe im not understanding the rebuttal but does god know the future presently?

When God knows the future he is in the future, but presently.

that seems contradictory, god is in the future, but in the present(which is not the future) X and ~X.

He would be in both because the future would be the present.

sounds like more nonsense, that no one can understand. Just my opinion.

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

They don't have the free will to lie about who they are in God. God planned for all His people to be liars during this first age because they're deceived by what they see in this world. They don't understand that they were created as information and are processed into illusions according to God's program called Eternal Life.

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

They don't have the free will to lie about who they are in God. God planned for all His people to be liars during this first age because they're deceived by what they see in this world. They don't understand that they were created as information and are processed into illusions according to God's program called Eternal Life.

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

They don't have the free will to lie about who they are in God. God planned for all His people to be liars during this first age because they're deceived by what they see in this world. They don't understand that they were created as information and are processed into illusions according to God's program called Eternal Life.

was this suppose to be a response or incoherent preaching?

It's in support of the OP. There's no such thing as free will but because of the way God made us and gives us many thoughts to contemplate, we believe we have free will.

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

I've made this topic quite a few times too and I believe it's irreconcilable.

If God knows everything you will ever do, whatever he knows you'll do is predestined. Thus, you wouldn't have the free will to do anything other than what God foreknew and you don't have free will. On the other hand, if God doesn't know what you're going to do, and gives you true free will, then he isn't omniscient.

One explanation that I read very recently has a different answer to this. I'm still uncertain about it but it goes like this:

God is always in the present. So as far as God can foreknow something, he can only know it presently because God is always in the present. This would indicate that whatever sins are committed are known to God at the exact time they are occurring.

It's an interesting argument but I still don't know if it's coherent. If an omnipresent God was always present, wouldn't he be present in hell too?

The problem with this is that if god is in every present it doesn't take away the fact that god is in a linear present of the only actualizing timeline of events, and gods knowing everything through this method would still indicate determinism.

God would exist in the linear timeline but only presently.

so maybe im not understanding the rebuttal but does god know the future presently?

When God knows the future he is in the future, but presently.

that seems contradictory, god is in the future, but in the present(which is not the future) X and ~X.

He would be in both because the future would be the present.

sounds like more nonsense, that no one can understand. Just my opinion.

Perhaps. I think it's the only feasible idea brought up on the issue.

From what I understand of Christian theology, the defensive claim cannot be true. God cannot be "in the present" if god is eternal. By that definition, gods conditions are fixed whenever/wherever he is. But since he is transcendent his qualia would never be in relation to some universal principle. So relating him to a time quantity doesn't work. This re-enforces theological fatalism... Even if there is no earth, he knows Bill Clinton will have an affair if he creates this universe. The only way Bill Clinton could not have an affair is if he created that universe instead. But he didn't.

Therefore, either there is no Christian god, or there is no free will god is the cause of all sin, or god is true but he is a liar, or god doesn't exist. And one of those options seems a whole lot easier to justify than the others.

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

Let's say you put a fish and a razor blade in front of a cat. You know that the cat will choose to eat the fish, not the razor blade. Does you knowing this fact prevent the cat from trying to eat the razor blade? No.

Just like in the example above, God can perfectly predict what you will do without infringing on your free will, since He knows everything about the present and every physical law He created and therefore can predict everything perfectly.

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

Let's say you put a fish and a razor blade in front of a cat. You know that the cat will choose to eat the fish, not the razor blade. Does you knowing this fact prevent the cat from trying to eat the razor blade? No.

Just like in the example above, God can perfectly predict what you will do without infringing on your free will, since He knows everything about the present and every physical law He created and therefore can predict everything perfectly.

I've seen this argument many times but it does nothing to capture the problem. Your answer only works if the agency in question is a passive observer. If you wrote the cat's brain, and designed every algorithm, every neural process, every synaptic potentiality, and simultaneously knew all the physical forces at work around it because you created the whole system you'd be predicting the event because you knew for sure what would happen. The creator creates his creation to sin, and it will sin, so the creator is responsible for the fact of the sinning because the sinner could not choose to do otherwise.

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

Let's say you put a fish and a razor blade in front of a cat. You know that the cat will choose to eat the fish, not the razor blade. Does you knowing this fact prevent the cat from trying to eat the razor blade? No.

Just like in the example above, God can perfectly predict what you will do without infringing on your free will, since He knows everything about the present and every physical law He created and therefore can predict everything perfectly.

But then he does not have a plan for us? And also, if we really had free will, why would we be sent to hell? He gave us free will, we can choose what we want. There should not be a punishment.

At 12/16/2014 8:15:43 PM, bebil10 wrote:Theological fatalism is the argument that Gods omniscience and free will our incompatible. The argument is against an omniscient (which includes foreknowledge) who gave us free will. This would include a prophetic religion like religion, since for prophecy to exist foreknowledge must be in the set of possible knowledge so god would know the future.

So within the argument anything that god knows will happen must necessarily happen, otherwise god would not have actually known it will happen. This is because a qualifier for knowledge is that the claim is true. So if god knows I will be go to work tomorrow at 8 am. Then it is true that I will go to work tomorrow at 8 am. This is where the problem comes in, since free will would imply that I actually have choices, yet there is nothing I can do other then go to work tomorrow since anything else I would do would falsify the claim God knows i will go to work tomorrow at 8 am.

What we actually have is a contradiction between the statement God knows and we have free will:

When god knows the future, there is only 1 possible thing we can do at any given time. Where as if we have free will we would have multiple choices to do at any given time. So to say god gave us free will and is omniscient is to say that we have 1 option and not one option on what we can do at any given time. This is directly contradictory.

Now I want to clear something up in this argument right away. The argument does not state that God's knowledge is the cause of our actions, it is about what Gods knowledge entails about the nature of the universe that is the problem. All too often when this is presented the theists get hung up on arguments about God's knowledge causing our actions, which simply misunderstands the logical relationship. Logical relationships are based on entailment not causation. So when we say god knows the future, this entails determinism, and with that said, we can rule out free will as a possible cause for our actions. That is the problem

How do Christians resolve this?

God exists outside of time he is eternally present - or simultaneously present throughout history. God's will is accomplished; however, it is accomplished in such a manner that still permits us to choose through free will. While it is is a mystery as to how this happens, it is not innately contradictory.